I've just been watching the conversation so far, but felt I needed to respond to this. Certainly lack of motivation has reached epidemic proportions in the inner cities of America. However, I fail to see how requiring yet another test of these students is going to increase their motivation in any way. They don't care if they graduate; why should they care about one more test? Perhaps part of the problem here is that we tend to teach (speaking generally here, not personally) inner-city kids the same way we teach suburban, middle-class kids. The latter group typically comes to school with at least some idea that they should try to succeed in school. This attitude carries over to tests; the students try to do well on tests because it is expected. This is just part of the middle-class culture. Judging from your comments, such is obviously not the case in inner-city communities; so why should another test mean anything at all to them??? I should note that I don't mean this as a personal attack. I'm honestly interested in hearing more about how and why promotion tests would motivate students.Chris ClarkPacific Lutheran University

On Wed, 11 Oct 1995 DanH150093@aol.com wrote:

> At this point, in many places in this country, arguing about the efficacy of> standardized tests is a silly enterprise. It is so completely ludicrous to> question these tests when the presense of them might tackle a REAL problem.> > In the inner city, lack of student motivation is profound and deep. On any> day 1/6 of our student body is absent. Getting them to do homework is a task> difficult beyond belief. At Open House 10% of the parents show. Student> motivation (perhaps THE most important component for educational success) is> almost totally lacking in a very large minority of our students.> > We need real tests to help us motivate our kids. You don't pass; you aren't> promoted!! It's very simple. The only people seemingly incapable of> understanding are the reforming educrats.> > When is somebody going to come and help us? It gets terribly frustrating at> times, particularly when you read the nonsense known as the NCTM "Standards".> Standards my %^&*((.> > Dan > > >